


when the dust settles

by callmefairyofthesea



Series: just because it's temporary doesn't mean it's worth less [4]
Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/F, Grief, Sexual Content, Unhealthy Relationships, also they're at a funeral so no one is thinking clearly, and by minor I mean Galfore, because Raven is an empath and high on Blackfire's emotions, death of a minor character, nothing explicit but it's not a fade to black either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmefairyofthesea/pseuds/callmefairyofthesea
Summary: Between funerals and galaxies and long-lost brothers, Blackfire chases another high.Set in the same universe as "no man is an island."
Relationships: Blackfire/Raven, Komand'r/Raven (DCU)
Series: just because it's temporary doesn't mean it's worth less [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185842
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	when the dust settles

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks after "the moments we miss." The Titans are on Tamaran for a hypothetical season six. Kori just reconnected with her sister, found her brother, and lost Galfore. This takes place at his funeral and it’s mostly an excuse for me to sit in Blackfire’s head, broken place that it is. 
> 
> The steamy scene doesn’t hit until the end, if that’s something you’d rather avoid. It could be construed as dubious consent, considering Raven is an empath and overwhelmed by all the emotions (especially Blackfire's lust), but that’s addressed in the sequel: "used (affectionate)."
> 
> Also, because some of my Beta readers totally forgot, Blackfire is Komand'r.

Komand’r watches the flames rise into the deep purple sky, the smoke curl against the constellations, the tangles of his deep red hair finally catch fire. She stands deep in the canyon, and the rock dust glitters gold beneath the firelight. Another day, Komand’r would inhale the familiar smell of Tamaran’s soil and dig her feet deep into the ground because this planet is watered with her memories, and she would never admit it aloud—but it is nice to be home.

She has not been back in years, and the deep purple skies and hot, scorching wind should be hell, but they’re not. She shouldn’t be lost in the stars, charting their paths and remembering the last time she watched those familiar constellations disappear. Locked in handcuffs, gated behind plasma doors.

And now she stares into the flames, stares until the light burns into her retinas and fills them with spots of black and white. She stares until the heat burns away the wetness in her eyes, and the mourners are fuzzy blurs of red hair and funeral gold. She remembers her parent’s funeral, almost. Dry-eyed and hollow. She remembers Kori hanging on to her hand and quietly sobbing. She remembers Ry in his basket on Galfore’s arm.

Galfore.

The golden shroud is black ash now. Sitting at the bottom of the canyon with the decayed bones and bodies of all of Tamaran’s Grand Rulers. Dust that sits beneath their moons and collects histories. Her people are keening, as is tradition, their long necks arched toward the sky.

Kori stands on her left, crying silently, the royal crown clenched tight in her fist. When she looks over, Komand’r looks down. Her so-called Earth friends stand behind them, behind the royal guards, behind the three heirs of Tamaran, reunited for the first time in years.

Ryand’r nudges her hand, trying to link pinkies, and it is so childish that she barks laughter into the night. It echoes alongside the keening, too sharp and jagged, but she has never fit in here.

Never been the child her parents wanted.

Never the princess that Galfore demanded.

But he loved her, and now he is dead.

“ _I only—I only just got him back,_ ” Ryand’r stammers, and she hates the deep scars that line his cheek. The Psions were crueler to him. More ambitious. His brokenness is written in the thin bones of his wrist, the way he trips on his words, the way his eyes drop and his lungs pitter-patter and hyperventilate.

His starbolts are unstable, and the green bleeds off his skin.

Komand’r says nothing because time means nothing to the right people. Time means nothing for the right price.

She stills beneath the hot winds, breathes in the smell of ashes and flame. If she were younger, less jaded, less bloodied by bad decisions and mistakes she can’t take back, she might smile. Might lean into Ry, or Kori, and cry with them.

It’s too late for that.

The hours pass, the keening quieting as eyes finally run dry, as long gold robes drag away, as gold cliff dust clings to hems and bare feet. One of the suns tilts toward the horizon, and still she holds her back straight. Watching. Determined to guard his body until she can’t stand it anymore. Determined to say goodbye.

If she were younger, she might break. But Komand’r is stitched up with surgical thread, held together by bitter stubbornness and refusal to be _rutha._ She has spent the last two and half years looking for Ryand’r while locked up on Roksahn, and now that she has him—now that he is safe—now that Galfore is dead—she doesn’t know what comes next.

Doesn’t know what she wants if family makes her feel empty.

“ _Sister,_ ” says Kori softly, in their mother tongue, “ _it is second dawn. Do you wish to return with us?_ ”

Komand’r glances at them. The green man shifting uneasily between the balls of his feet. The metal armored one still staring at the burned-out flames. The acrobat whose eyes have not left Kori in hours. The blonde girl who stands slightly apart. The demon.

“ _I’d like to be alone._ ”

Ryand’r grabs her hand, and he is _naïve._ A fucking child. Too soft for what he has been through, what they have all been through. “ _I can stay._ ”

She shrugs because she only just got him back. When it soaks in, when she is not frozen still when she sees his face, she might find the strength to be mean.

“We’re heading back now?”

“That’s up to Starfire,” someone says, and Komand’r hates her sister’s name in English. Hates using their language.

“I am ready.”

“You’re staying?” a voice asks. The blonde girl to the demon. Komand’r doesn’t remember her.

She tunes them out because what does it matter, if anyone stays. She will stand over this canyon until her knees crumble, will swallow the tears until she is alone. Galfore loved her.

Footsteps hit the sand, and the royal guards follow—because Komand’r isn’t considered worth guarding. Not anymore. Closing her eyes against the heat of the second sun, Komand’r considers the dryness in her mouth, the chapped skin of her hands. It gives her attention somewhere to rest. Somewhere that is not Galfore’s body at the bottom of this canyon, somewhere that does not hurt.

She thought pain lost meaning years ago, that the Psions beat it out of her. But this _aches,_ heavy like chains that pull her down into darkness, even though she can feel the sun on her skin.

If she were younger, she might let herself feel it.

More hours.

Long hours.

Hot hours.

The sun is so fucking good, and she feels it soaking into her, filling that well of pink energy, splashing over until it bleeds from her fingertips and hair. It’s not flying, but she is not sure she can right now. Doesn’t know if there’s any happiness left in the gaping holes of her empty heart.

Doesn’t know the last time she actually felt happy, just knows she can fake it long enough to think it’s real.

Eventually Ryand’r leaves, squeezing her hand because the Psions left him with kindness.

The demon with the cloak still stands at the edge of the canyon, levitating in front of the rising suns so that her shadow lays long across the golden dirt. Komand’r doesn’t know why she’s here.

Doesn’t care enough to ask.

A small piece of her, a piece that isn’t so gnarled and twisted and vicious, pulls up the memory of a poetry café on Earth. The bitter smell of coffee and rain as the demon leaned back into that red leather booth and stirred honey into her tea. She remembers the quiet, dark flicker of her eyes as Komand’r reached out to touch her. The flash of red, the splitting skin, the gleam of fangs. Reminded her of other demons on the outskirts of the universe. Ex-lovers who fucked hard and fast and mean, and maybe Komand’r was hoping for a distraction from the green diamond she had wrapped around Kori’s neck. Waiting for the Centauri Police to haul her away.

Mostly she remembers Kori’s jealousy as they left for the café.

Remembers it sticky-sweet like addiction, and it’s always been easier to give Kori a reason to hate her. Easier to take _everything_ from her than admit why.

Squinting at the blackened soot of Galfore, Komand’r feels the ache again. Feels it pulling her into that canyon. So heavy. So quiet. So empty.

“I can make it stop,” the demon says suddenly, and her voice is low and rolling, exactly the way Komand’r remembers it.

“What makes you think I want you to?” she hisses, hating the hollow clang of grief deep in her throat, the numbness that comes with knowing it’s her fault they didn’t get longer together. Her fault that his body is ashes instead of flesh and bone.

“Your emotions are… _loud,”_ the demon clarifies, her thin shoulders shuddering.

“Then get out of my fucking head.”

“It’s not that easy.”

As Komand’r turns to look at her, she feels something snap in her chest. Something harder and more alive than whatever she’s been pretending for the last three years. It reminds her of broken people and stolen nights on the edges of the universe, head fuzzy with drugs, smoking whatever the planet had to offer because giggly blurs of color and dancing at the edge of death usually felt better than staring at scars and reliving flashbacks. _Something_ is better than nothing.

“I’ve met your kind before,” she says. Her impulse control hitches sideways, and she feels dizzy. Reckless. “Always wondered why you play hero, why you pretend to care about humans.”

“My mother was human.”

“ _Was,_ ” Komand’r repeats.

Time passes so slowly it hurts.

“She died.”

“That’s what happens when you care.”

The demon’s nails dig into her palms, and Komand’r only notices because it lets her look at something that isn’t Galfore’s ashes. It’s the only reason she’s staring at the gray skin of another addiction. It’s why she wants to rip her self-control wide open and taste the rush of something, _anything_ else.

After ten beats of nothing, the demon says, “Not caring is lonely.”

“I’m not lonely.”

The demon shrugs, as if she doesn’t care to argue, and Komand’r feels her knees creak beneath her, locked into place for too long. As she walks toward the second sun, into the shadow of gold, she feels her fingers twitch.

“I’m not lonely,” she repeats, too close to the demon, so close that the starbolts are staticky between them. Hot pink light like electricity.

Sarcasm rolls forward. “Of course not.”

Komand’r rolls forward. Impulsively. Dangerously. Dropping her face to the demon’s ear, she breathes in the scorching wind. Sees her wince from the proximity of emotions. “Still too loud?”

The demon smells something like herbs and smoke, something that does not exist on Tamaran, and Komand’r inhales it, not knowing what to expect, not knowing what the fuck she even wants, but the sky is purple, and the cliffs are golden, and gray skin is the only thing cold here.

And Komand’r is burning.

She’s been burning for years.

“Go ahead,” she says. “Make it stop.”

“You want me to—?”

“ _Yes_.”

Black magic spills into Komand’r as the demon presses their hands together, pulling up her grief like deep roots, dense soil. But Komand’r shakes her head, leans into another high, a new distraction with thick lips and bright eyes.

“Not like that,” Komand’r whispers, breathing into the gap, complicating it. She bites hard on a soft lower lip, wets their crease with her tongue, and threatens to swallow them both into blacked-out lust.

The demon’s mouth gasps beneath her, soft, surprised, and _Xhal,_ when is the last time she felt this? The last time she curled into cold skin and felt muscle flex beneath her fingers, the last time she pulled someone flush to her hips, the last time she sighed a name into the emptiness.

This is an addiction that Komand’r will gladly lose herself in if it means the ache goes away, and she can feel them burning against each other, their heat and their smoldering _something_ that erupts and blazes through dry fields and set their lips aflame like wildfire.

“What are you—?”

There is emptiness as the demon pulls back. Gaping, aching emptiness.

“I’m not lonely,” Komand’r pants, and she drags her nails across bare back. Four red eyes splinter smoke-colored skin, and a growl pulls them together. “Don’t make me say it again.”

The demon’s mind snaps against hers, just as hot and lost in bodies as Komand’r and _fuck, yes._ Black magic is bleeding onto the golden cliffs, and Komand’r doesn’t know when the demon’s teeth sharpened with fangs, or when her mind stopped feeling _human,_ but she is not about to stop.

Not when she can forget the pain.

Not when the demon folds her into a black portal, away from the graveyard of bones and memories, and throws them across one of the palace’s guest beds.

“Have you done this before?” Komand’r asks once, high-pitched moans pulled between each syllable, and the demon’s answer is to push her against the wall with a snarl, cold fingers disappearing somewhere low, somewhere hot.

“Tell me where you want me.”

She thinks they lose control, somewhere in the high of their bodies against each other, when the demon’s purple hair pales into white, and her skin burns cherry red, and her four eyes are squeezed shut from feeling, but after—

After she falls limp and panting into Komand’r’s chest and when her mind pulls away, sticky with regret and arousal—

After she whispers something into sweat-damp hair and skin, something like an apology for the bite marks and bruises on their thighs—

After she looks at the ripped sheets and broken pillows, Komand’r laughs coldly and drops to her knees between the demon’s legs, thinking she should ask for her name. Because when the dust settles, the ache will be back.

And she’s not ready to feel it.

**Author's Note:**

> This pushes the boundaries of in character for Raven, but I wanted to give her an outlet to explore relationships with someone who’s not on the team. She hasn’t quite figured out the difference between platonic love, romance, and lust. She also a little high on Blackfire’s emotions and a little messed up by her demonic heritage. (On that note, this isn’t supposed to be a healthy relationship; Blackfire is very clearly grieving and trying to distract herself.)


End file.
